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Email letters, August 13, 2014

Both Sentinel and Carter made incorrect statements about global climate change

I just read the front-page article regarding Jimmy Carter’s recent appearance in Aspen. In the first paragraph, the Sentinel writer states, “Climate change was hardly on Jimmy Carter’s radar when he served as president in the late 1970’s.” Carter then went on to call those of us who do not adhere to his view on global warming as “nutcases.” A small amount of research shows how inaccurate both the writer and the former president are.

On Sept 17, 1978, then President Carter signed into law the National Climate Program Act with the specific intent to study and determine the cause of a cooling earth. I recall all the celebrities and politicians back then (many of the same ones carping about global warming and climate change now), warning us all about the dire consequences of the rapidly cooling planet and the onset of a new ice age. They were wrong then, and they, and the current crop of climate change-ologists, are wrong now.

Two suggestions: One, writers need to better research their subjects and what they were actually saying and were doing back in the day. And two, Carter would have been a much better ex-president if he had stuck to peanut farming and working with the Habitat for Humanity group.
STEPHEN FULLERTONGrand Junction

Important to remind community about mental health and wellness

Thank you so much for your sensitive coverage of Robin William’s death, and also for the great article on caregiver stressors and wellness techniques. Many people do not realize that while depression can be acute and seemingly genetic in origin, we forget that extreme stress can bring about all kinds of illness, including depression and anxiety. It is important to continue to tie these things together. It is essential to remind our community that we need to practice self-care and also care for one another as community members.

There is an excellent magazine available online that addresses anxiety and depression and how to develop life skills to help manage these life-threatening illnesses. Esperanza is the name and it can be found at http://www.hopetocope.com

There is also a wonderful new movement that has grown from the depression related death of Rick & Kay Warren’s son. Many enlightening videos can be found on YouTube at the “Mental Health and the Church” channel.
ERICA KITZMANGrand Junction

Top boss at city should be approached for TABOR calculations

Until you know what the boss has asked someone to do or not to do, it is difficult to find fault with that person.

The Daily Sentinel article on Monday by Duffy Hayes, “City holds back key calculations on TABOR” would cause you to believe that the city of Grand Junction is thumbing its nose at the Colorado Open Records Act, our newspaper and our citizens with their response, “There are no documents responsive to your request.”

This should be an easy one to resolve. Remember that boss thing mentioned above? Go to the top boss, have them ask for how the numbers were developed for the years in question, supply the supporting documentation for the reported data to those requesting the information and apologize for being non-responsive and compromising the integrity of our city government.

If the top boss is unwilling or incapable of getting this done timely, it may be time to get a new top boss.

GARY ROAHRIGGrand Junction

Motorcycles cause damage to dirt roads and trails

I was up on the Uncompahgre this past weekend and when we drove in, Uranium Road was a hard packed, good quality road. When we drove out Sunday evening, the road was four inches of loose, sloppy sand. What took place was a 400-motorcycle enduro race.

If a hard packed road was torn up this badly, imagine what happened to the trails that the racers used. Whose bright idea was this to have a motorcycle race of this magnitude on our fragile public lands?

With apologies to my dirt bike riding friends, motorcycles have potential to cause great damage to dirt trails. For evidence of this, just look at the Zion Curtain Trail in Rabbit Valley.
DAVID DASHNERGrand Junction
State Treasurer needs to work for PERA benefits

I, like Janice Rich, have had the opportunity to meet Mr. Stapleton not once, but twice. At both meetings, he spent very little time talking about the job of being State Treasurer and the remainder of his speech on how he wanted to dismantle PERA. I’m not sure if that is the vision that Rich is talking about. Checking the record at the PERA board as well as his office, we can easily find that Stapleton is rarely in attendance.

PERA recipients account for several million dollars in Mesa and surrounding counties, all of which was contributed and earned by retirees through their career. That is a huge driver of the economy, especially in times of recession. I want my State Treasurer to protect and work for, and not against a retirement plan that provides such benefits to local communities. Betsy Markey has said she wants to work with the PERA board to let the changes made in 2010 work out as well as any further changes that may arise. Markey gets my vote.

ROGER FULKSDelta

Gardner’s ads regarding ACA substantially misleading

Voters anticipating the November 4 election between incumbent Democrat Sen. Mark Udall and his extremist Republican challenger Cory Gardner should know that Denver’s KDVR-TV reports that two of Gardner’s television ads are substantially misleading.

The first, from Karl Rove’s notorious “Crossroads GPS,” features Richelle McKim bemoaning health insurance costs under the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”). McKim has worked in the oil and gas industry since 2008 (before the ACA) – for both Anadarko Petroleum and now Noble Energy, two of Gardner’s most prolific campaign donors.

Before the ACA, McKim purportedly could not afford the $800/month premium to cover her husband (due to his “pre-existing condition”), but now he can be covered on her Noble policy – for more than the coverage that excluded him (but not $800 more).

Thus, in disparaging the “individual mandate” (originally, the Republican approach to expanding access to affordable health insurance), McKim, Gardner, and our own Scott Tipton would take the ACA away from thousands of Coloradans who are benefiting from it. Senator Udall would not.

The second ad – sponsored and narrated by Gardner– claims that, like 335,000 other Coloradans, Gardner personally received a cancellation notice last year (which he still refuses to provide to KDVR).

What Gardner disingenuously fails to note is that he voluntarily opted out of his federal employer-sponsored health insurance plan (so that he could complain about cancellation notices?), that 92% of policy-holders were able to keep their existing coverage, that the number of uninsured Coloradans fell by 33+% from 2013 to 2014 (the fifth-largest drop in the U.S.), and that premiums for 2015 in Colorado are projected to increase just 3.6% (versus an average of 7.6% per year from 1991 through 2009).

This letter is in regard to the recent complaints about the DMV office in Glenwood Springs.

I recently discovered that my driver’s license had been expired for over one year, so I drove to the Glenwood Springs DMV office to have it reissued. I waited for two hours and was informed that I would have to take the written and driving tests as well as the eye test, even though I have had no traffic violations or accidents for over thirty years. I have been a citizen of this country for all of my life and have over 50 years of driving experience.

I passed the written and eye tests and was informed that I had to make an appointment for the driver test but that it could be up to six months before an appointment would be available. However, I could call a certain phone number and get an appointment at another DMV office. I was able to make an appointment within a week at an office that was over 100 miles away. I drove there and passed the drivers test. I was given a document for the passed test and informed that I would receive my license in about 30 days and that my expired license had to be surrendered immediately.

About one week later I received in the mail a three-year “instruction license,” which meant that, according to the law, I would have to have a licensed driver with me when driving. I made several calls and finally got in touch with a DMV employee and informed him that I was very unhappy and irate about the time and expense that I had incurred. I still had no regular license and was personally insulted to have an “instruction license.” I received my regular valid drivers license within one week.

I was reading a newspaper article that stated that on the first day that the law allowing drivers licenses for illegal immigrants law took effect, 62 illegal immigrants were issued drivers licenses on that same day. Apparently these immigrants did not have to have an appointment for the driver test as I had to. Immigrants who are here illegally apparently were given preferential treatment by the Democrat/Republican lawmakers when applying for driver’s licenses

All the employees of the DMV treated me very well, but it was obvious that the Glenwood office is understaffed. Government employees have to follow the rules and regulations that are in the laws passed by Republican/Democrat lawmakers. Therefore, elected officials at all levels of government are solely responsible for any unnecessary and dysfunctional rules and regulations that relate to the laws they impose and the extra work for the employees that may cause long wait times for the public. Perhaps a test for “common sense” is in order for all elected public servants.
GARRY EVENSONBattlement Mesa

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By Virginia Bright - Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Mr. Bright says Bill Hussein Hugenburg is at it again, anything he believes in is the truth and anything anybody else knows to be the truth is just wrong. So Vote the party of IRS weaponization, failed foreign policy, higher taxes, and Death by Doctor. Remember: “Republicans want a man that will lend dignity to the office. Democrats want a man that will lend them all their money”. Will Rogers

By Dennis Patton - Thursday, August 14, 2014

Any time Mr. Hugenburg or any other liberal puts the old “extremist” label on someone, the speaker is trying to shape your thinking along his lines right off the bat and is not open to any other thoughts.

Always remember Mr. Bright, Liberals want you to think like them, conservatives just want you to think.

By Virginia Bright - Thursday, August 14, 2014

Hussein Bill is like the Nancy Pelosi quote: “we have to pass it to see what’s in it”, My doctor calls that a stool sample. Billy being a Lawyer with a degree in communism he is as extreme as they come. Mr. Bright